Déjà View: Bologna, Italy; The Cultural Rephotographic Survey of Bologna, Italy

by Willie Osterman

Most photographic monographs are books that invite a quick scanning of images before they find a permanent resting-place on a library shelf or join the stack on a coffee table. Willie Osterman’s Déjà Bologna, Italy is a delightful and serious exception that compels rereading and restudy—which is, after all, the subject of the book. The skill, sensitivity, and sensibility of this fine photographer is echoed throughout a book that merits a wide audience. Willie Osterman started his career as a landscape photographer in Yosemite National Park. At that time his view was focused on the natural landscape. Years later, in Bologna, his view changed. It became Déjà View, a view and review of scenes past, discovered in old photographs. With some study and research, sites were rediscovered and rephotographed. He began his rephotographic "archaeological dig" by researching photographs in libraries and collections and by walking the streets of Bologna with camera in hand. After viewing hundreds of old photographs, he decided on the ones he wanted to rephotograph, and with the help of many local residents, identified their locations. The paired photographs provide an opportunity to compare Bologna as far back as the late 1800s to the Bologna of 1998. There is a variety of scenes to aerials of the city from high towers, cobblestone streets, piazzas with people moving about, horses and ox-drawn vehicles, architecture, statues, monuments, churches, partially bombed-out structures since renovated and repaired, and portraits. Each image is reproduced in warm duotone with captions in Italian and English.

Paperback

Published July 1, 2002